[EccentricMeat]

After tearing my hair out working on this for the last week, I found the fix. And it's beyond stupid how simple it is, after all the other things I tried.

To fix the hedge defender being an idiot: Set the "Play Passing Lanes" tendency to 0.

That's it. That's the fix.

Any other tweak to any other defense-related slider will just fine-tune how you want the game to play, but none of them will actually affect the hedge defender logic that we're trying to fix. Tweaking the movement sliders will again fine-tune the game to how you want it to play, but is not necessary to fix this issue (though realistic movement will make it much more difficult for quick dribblers to just run around the defense in general). EVERY OTHER SLIDER can be left at whatever setting you want, it doesn't matter. Just set "Play Passing Lanes" to 0 and the vast majority of the time the hedge defender will react to the pick as if he actually realizes he's playing basketball.

Setting "Play Passing Lanes" to any higher setting will (the vast majority of the time) result in the hedge defender over-reacting away from the pick or just standing in place as you run around him, though he will be slightly quicker to react to the dribbler the closer this setting is to 0. Honestly, I don't see any benefit to increasing this slider. Just leave it at 0 and you're good to go.