Sometimes you will play the card first, normally to modify the dice roll's effect. Other times you will play the card after the roll to respond to the result. Barring other effects, an odd roll scores 2, an even roll is a miss, and a double scores 3. The entire deck is played out for each half. When the deck is depleted play contnues until a player must play a card and their hand is empty.
Strategy comes from playing cards at the right time.
If you roll doubles, it is a good time to foul the other team. Near the end of a half if your team is ahead a risky strategy is to play lots of 'loose ball' cards which can return play to your team without the other team getting to dump a card. This speeds the end of the half as you burn off all of your cards. Not much there but a good filler.