It’s unfair to compare, but this Celtics celebration feels a lot like the glory days of the 1980s.

We’ve done it 13 times already… 13 times! – this century, starting with the Patriots’ Super Bowl victory in February 2002, and while the Celtics ended a five-year title drought in the region this year, the nuts and bolts of a championship celebration in this city ​​are always familiar.

We know the route by heart, and the rhythms, songs that are sometimes vulgar, sometimes hilarious, and often both; players recognize handmade signs and shout their names; an assortment of refreshments consumed on board and off the ducks are standard features of good times.

On a day like Friday, there’s no need for “the energy to change,” to paraphrase a prescient Jaylen Brown quote from the Celtics’ 2022 run to the Finals. The energy is already impeccable.

This full moment, this day in Celtics lore, from the brief conference at TD Garden before the players and staff boarded the duck boats, to the parade and its associated hijinks (Brown threw footballs basketball to fans; Derrick White, perhaps recommended by his “cousin from Boston”, beers thrown away), is in itself a drink to be cherished.

But there’s one comparison that’s impossible to resist, and this particular model is no thief of joy.

What we’ve experienced these past few weeks with the Celtics reminds me so much of how wonderful it was here during the glory days of Larry Bird and the Big Three in the ’80s.

I have no greater sporting compliment to offer than that, and I’m sure I never will.

The intention in this space on parade day was to allow these new champions their independence, to celebrate what Brown, Jayson Tatum and their talented teammates have achieved rather than focusing on where they are or what to how they compare in the franchise’s unrivaled history.

But then the first speaker at Friday’s preparatory event, Gov. Maura Healey, brought up the story almost immediately.

“We are in love with this team,” she said. “Basketball is a team game, everyone has a role, everyone has a part…and as good as they are on the court, these men are better as human beings.”

She then moved from the present to the past, remarking on beloved Celtics players she grew up admiring, saluting Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, Cedric Maxwell and even the legendary narrator of that era.

“If you close your eyes,” she said, “you can hear Johnny Most.”

It’s irresistible to avoid such comparisons, to avoid thinking about other special moments in Celtics history, while celebrating the most recent. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing, even though I tried to resist.

The next few seasons will of course determine whether these Celtics can come close to the Birds’ peak three titles. And even if they did, the sentimentality and nostalgia of my generation and that of Governor Healey would probably prevent them from being as beloved.

But much of what happens today resembles what happened then, even if the details have changed. There were no “rolling rallies” in the 1980s; the Celtics spoke to fans at City Hall. The Celtics didn’t address fans directly at all on Friday, which feels like a missed opportunity for further connection and perhaps some good one-liners.

(Even the pre-show conference event was short on good banter, although Tatum did make a decent dig at Miami that you’ve probably seen 15 times now. Maybe 20.)

But it’s the similarities that will stay with me. The sea of ​​fans, adorned with green and white, as far as the eye can see. The willingness of players and coaches to let loose, showing the less serious side of their personalities. Good weather in a beautiful city, the ideal setting to enjoy a team that won this admiration. Even the cartoonish ’80s championship jerseys worn by many Celtics employees were a welcome throwback.

Joy. The overwhelming, gratitude-filled joy. It’s exactly the same thing.

For my particular generation of Celtics fans, the ’80s were the good old days.

But Friday’s festivities brought a welcome reminder. The good old days?

We are there right now.

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Chad Finn can be contacted at [email protected]. follow him @GlobeChadFinn.